A Hong Kong court on Thursday upheld a ruling against retired bishop and democracy advocate Cardinal Joseph Zen and four co-defendants for failing to register the humanitarian fund they created to help protesters arrested during the pro-democracy uprising of 2019.
Zen and his co-defendants were arrested in 2022 on “suspicion of colluding with foreign forces” under the odious “national security law” China imposed on Hong Kong in 2020.
The law was tailored to crush the pro-democracy movement by criminalizing all resistance to the Beijing-controlled city government. One of its provisions made “collusion with foreigners” into a crime, giving the government an easy way to throw protesters in jail by accusing them of colluding with foreign governments and media organizations.
The Vatican expressed deep concern about Zen’s arrest and human rights groups around the world were outraged. Cardinal Zen was 90 years old at the time and needed a walking stick to make his court appearances.
The cardinal and his colleagues were never actually charged under the national security law invoked as a pretext for arresting them. Instead, they were convicted in November 2022 of failing to properly register their organization, the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which they established to pay medical and legal fees for protesters who were arrested during the uprising. The fund was created in June 2019 and operated until September 2021, when the Hong Kong police threatened to investigate it under the National Security Law.
The charges were brought under the Societies Ordinance, a seldom-invoked 1949 Hong Kong law that requires organizations to either register or apply for an exemption from registration within one month of their creation. According to the Associated Press on Thursday, Cardinal Zen and his co-defendants are the first people to be convicted under the Societies Ordinance.
Hellbound and Down 